TNN

Jalandhar, May 21: More than five years of multiple kidney transplants have left a young photographer of Khaira Dona village with as many kidneys in his body. After his earlier two transplants failed, Jaswant, 33, went in for another operation some 40 days back and is back home with a firm resolve to “make it this time”.

Doctors who treated him claim, “He is fourth such patient in the country to successfully undergo three renal transplants.”

Jaswant has been lucky to find donors within the family. In 2004, when he underwent first transplant at the age of 25, his elder sister had donated the organ. “I was all right for over a year or so. However, my body rejected the kidney once I stopped post-operation medication because of financial constraints,” he said.

His other sister, younger to him, offered her kidney when he returned to the operation table two years later. But 14 months later, his system had rejected the new organ and he was back on dialysis.

“Determined to see me live, the family just wouldn’t give up and prepared for another surgery. This time, my mother, 55, gave me her bean-shaped organ,” he added, a shadow of smile playing on his face as he looked at Amar Kaur standing by his side. Jaswant’s father ekes out a living from milk sales while his driver brother earns so less that it hardly supplements the family’s meagre income.

Help came from the medical front this time around when doctors, suitably impressed by the brave hearts, decided to chip in with skills and other resources at their disposal. They did not only operate him for free but also arranged a fare share of medicines. According to Rajesh Agrawal, transplant surgeon of National Kidney Hospital, who conducted the surgery along with Suresh Aggarawal and Sanjay Mittal, “The case is second in the region, where a third kidney transplant surgery has been done successfully. The earlier three transplants in the country were conducted at Hyderabad, Lucknow and Delhi.”

According to them, kidneys need not be removed necessarily before transplant. Buoyed by the “hardiness” of their patient, the medics are now planning to provide scientific data about this case to medical journals.